


Such a Heavenly View

by ZygomaticBliss



Series: Alphabet Johnlock Songfic Challenge [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Again, Barest hints of Johnlock, Character Study, Gen, Kinda, M/M, POV Sherlock Holmes, Post-A Study In Pink, Pre-Slash, Religion, Songfic, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-27
Updated: 2015-02-27
Packaged: 2018-03-15 12:45:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3447701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZygomaticBliss/pseuds/ZygomaticBliss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inspired by A Sky Full of Stars by Coldplay, the first in a series of 26 songfics - one for each letter of the alphabet.</p>
<p>If there was one thing Sherlock would never comprehend, it was religion.<br/>And then John Watson limped into his life.</p>
<p>Takes place in the dinner following the events of A Study in Pink.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Such a Heavenly View

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is the third time I've tried to write this story, so cut me some slack, if you will.  
> I will be writing 26 one-shots (although I might be inspired to expand some of them into two or three chapters). Each one will be based off or around a song, one for each letter of the alphabet - yes, even X and Q and so on. I've got them mostly planned out around songs of my own taste, but I am accepting requests, especially for songs starting with the "hard" letters. I can't promise I'll use them, but I'll definitely try to incorporate a few if I get enough requests.  
> Oh, and they'll all be based at least loosely around Johnlock. I might try my hand at smut later on, but look out for mostly fluff or angst (or both XD).  
> Enjoy!

If there was one thing Sherlock would never comprehend, it was religion. Logically, he knew why the belief in God and heaven existed – the longing to understand how the world came to be and filling in the terrifying oblivion of not-life with fairy tales of heaven, doubling with the once-useful boogeyman Satan to cut down on the evil in the world. Millennia ago, the practice was commonplace and necessary to the maintenance of civilization, but the practice has long since lost its utility. He didn’t place any judgment against the spirituals of the world, the people who truly believed in a supreme being or even an afterlife – there was far too little one way or another to prove or disprove such notions… It was religion itself that bemused him. To his eyes, religion seemed more like an irrefutable excuse to remain ignorant in the face of science, hateful to any minorities and foreigners they deemed “sinful”, and comfortable in their self-righteousness as a horrible human being.

Needless to say, he found the whole thing absolutely not only detestable, but incomprehensible.

And, as with all things he found utterly beyond human powers of understanding, he didn’t waste a second’s thought on it. He rarely ever found thoughts of heaven or hell intruding upon his Mind Palace, and usually only when he was working on cases with religious elements.

And then John Watson limped into his life.

“Please God, let me live.” Sherlock had dismissed it at the time, impatient to get on with the case, brain racing toward the finish line while John and Lestrade floundered in his wake, but eating Chinese in surprisingly companionable silence with John after the case, his whirling mind had returned to the simple statement. It was simple, uncomplicated, and nauseatingly banal, fitting the speaker, but he realized it, like John, was more interesting than the first round of deductions proved. John was a soldier, a doctor, an adrenaline junkie, a killer, a friend – and wasn’t that last one surprising? Everything Sherlock of the man made him out as an atheist.

“You believe in God?” he asked, despising how his ability to deduce this man was so inaccurate. John blinked, dim sum halfway to his mouth, before he registered the non sequitur.

“Yeah,” he said, shrugging. “I don’t do the whole church bit, but… Christ, I don’t know. It just makes sense to me, that someone’s out there, watching out for us, helping out where we let him.”

“He let you live,” Sherlock remarked, and John nodded, smiling slightly.

“Murray may have patched me up and carried me back to camp, and I may have fought off the blood loss and infection, but I have no doubt that neither of us would have been enough on our own.” John shrugged again and finally ate the bite of dim sum. “Life happens, and sometimes shit hits the fan, but at the end of the day, I think I can count on God to help me clean up the mess. I’m guessing you don’t?”

“Not at all,” Sherlock stated imperiously, and the doctor, amused, took another bite of dim sum. “But that doesn’t mean I think any less of people who do,” he added, and John looked up, surprised. Feeling a bit exposed, he added, “It’s religion I can’t stand. Bloody hypocrites.”

“I’ll agree with that one,” John laughed, lifting his bottle of beer to the sentiment. “My parents gave Harry so much shit about liking girls in the name of religion.”

“And you were the supportive brother, I suppose?” Sherlock asked.

“I wanted to be,” John mused. “But Harry was the elder of us – wouldn’t really let me in. I stopped trying after she made out with my then-girlfriend to get back at me for trying to get her to talk to me about how she was doing.”

“And I thought my relationship with Mycroft was bad,” Sherlock joked, pleased when John snorted into his beer.

“Oh, it is, trust me,” he argued. “For all I’ve done to protect her, and all Harry’s done to piss me off, at least neither of us have kidnapped the other’s flatmate and questioned him about his intentions.” Sherlock blinked – really? Mycroft was usually spot-on with his deductions; why the hell would he think he and John were a couple? Oblivious to Sherlock’s wandering thoughts, John continued, “And for all the Harry is a prima donna sometimes, we’ve never referred to each other as ‘arch enemies.’”

“That was mostly a manipulation tactic,” Sherlock said, still focused on Mycroft’s misstep. “Mycroft wanted to make sure you wouldn’t sell me out to any criminals I might face in the future, and selling information to a brother isn’t nearly as indicative as selling it to an enemy.”

“You’re both still barmy,” John asserted, then went back to his dim sum. Sherlock leveled a deductionary stare at the man, more curious about him, the layers of him, the secrets of him.

Later, he knew, he’d build a room just for John in his Mind Palace, and he would work for hours just to unravel his secrets, his motivations, his being. He would work all night if he had to, perhaps into the next day. Even as he resolved to spend as much time as possible figuring out this man in front of him, he felt the oddest sensation just beneath the skin. Almost as if he could spend years plodding away at him without gaining even the slightest ground, yet not fading into apathy. Almost as if he could spend the rest of his life without truly solving the mystery of Dr. John H. Watson. Sherlock identified the feeling, and, where another might have shrank back in despair, the detective fought back a face-splitting grin.

In one day, he’d caught a serial killer, learned the name no one said, and unearthed a mystery he would be unraveling for all the rest of his life. It really was Christmas. Sherlock settled back into his chair and watched John, the doctor, the soldier, the small man in the woolen jumper and a gun tucked under his belt, and wondered if he’d ever seen such a heavenly view.

**Author's Note:**

> Don't forget to leave kudos, comments, and don't forget to subscribe!


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